Printing Fun-Fun with Sega Pri Fun

Today I’m finally testing the Sega Pri Fun printer that I bought 4-5 years ago. Back then it was still sealed.
The printer was marketed by Sega in 1995 as an add-on for the Pico and Saturn game consoles. You won’t find much information about it in the WWW except a small article at Sega Retro or a commercial on YouTube.Sega Pri Fun 01Sega Pri Fun 02
In the package is the Pri Fun printer, two ink ribbon cartridges for 30 prints each, a video cable, the pause pack with manual, 30 stickers (15 full page and 15 4x stickers), 30 pages and a manual pack (user manual, safety manual, cleaning manual + cleaning swab and warranty card).Sega Pri Fun 03
There is a slot in the lower right corner for an extension cartrige, I assume it’s called Character Pack and contains various stamps to be superimposed on the video (don’t have it and can’t test it).

Controls from left to right: Power Switch, two-digit LED display, up/down Select (my guess is that these are for the Character Pack), Mode full page and 4x page, Pause/Play button (for the Pause Pack), a 3-step switch light to dark and a potentiometer red to blue (5 marks).Sega Pri Fun 04
On the back there are video in and out connectors and a connector for the Pause Pack above (hidden).Sega Pri Fun 05
The hood can be opened with the Eject button on the front:Sega Pri Fun 06Sega Pri Fun 07
This is the printer head:Sega Pri Fun 08
To function the printer needs a ink ribbon cartridge and and paper/stickers. I highly doubt to find more of these accessory materials ever, so my printer will be limited to 60 prints…Sega Pri Fun 09
The video connector accepts composite video only and I don’t have those cables for Pico and Saturn – I’ll use a first generation Mega Drive instead. Upon powering up the printer greets me with error E5 – saying it needs an ink ribbon cartridge:Sega Pri Fun 10
Insert the cartrige…Sega Pri Fun 11Sega Pri Fun 12Sega Pri Fun 13Sega Pri Fun 14
…and insert the paper:Sega Pri Fun 15
While printing the LED counts down from 30 to 00, the paper is being moved back and forth three times to print Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. The whole process takes about two minutes. When done the page is being extracted below the tray:Sega Pri Fun 16
This is my first print of Galaxy Force II:Sega Pri Fun 17
As you can see this print shows many overlapping screens of the game – seems it is useless when the picture is moving. Luckily the Pause Pack to freeze the screen was included:Sega Pri Fun 18Sega Pri Fun 19
Inside the Pause Pack:Sega Pri Fun 20Sega Pri Fun 21
The cover of the connector can be stored in the cartridge – very convenient:Sega Pri Fun 22Sega Pri Fun 23Sega Pri Fun 24
Pause Pack attached to the printer:Sega Pri Fun 25
Let’s see what we get now after pushing the Pause button:Sega Pri Fun 26Sega Pri Fun 27
And the same picture in 4x mode:Sega Pri Fun 28
To understand the printing process I turned back the wheel of the ink ribon cartridge, this is how the film looks for the three colours Cyan, Magenta and Yellow:Sega Pri Fun 29Sega Pri Fun 30Sega Pri Fun 31
There is a black marker strip, my guess is that is it magnetic, so the printer can distinguish between what has been used and then scroll forward to the next free space:Sega Pri Fun 32Sega Pri Fun 33
The normal paper can be printed on both sides. This doesn’t apply to the sticker paper (obviously), so it has directions on how to feed it into the printer:Sega Pri Fun 34Sega Pri Fun 35
My first set of Stickers:Sega Pri Fun 37
It seems that the quality is getting worse and worst, just have a look at this LaserDisc print (can you guess the movie?):Sega Pri Fun 38
The cleaning manual recommends to clean the printing head and the areas next to the rubbber drum:Sega Pri Fun 39
The swab contains 99% isopropyl alcohol, so I’m not going to tear it open and use my own supply instead to clean the areas indicated:Sega Pri Fun 40Sega Pri Fun 41Sega Pri Fun 42
Looks a little bit better, doesn’t it? I still think that the decaying rubber drum is causing the problems, the thicker the paper (e.g. stickers), the bigger the problems with the prints.Sega Pri Fun 43
That was a PAL Sonic in NTSC/J mode, by the way, in PAL mode it looks really cool and psychedelic (e.g. turquoise Sonic), but the Pause Pack doesn’t work this way and outputs this instead:Sega Pri Fun 44
Everything considered this peripheral is much better than the GameBoy Printer and Camera, as it produces real cool Sega stickers:Sega Pri Fun 45